Apple TV+’s hit sci-fi series “Severance” has been praised as a radical indictment of the capitalist system. But its satire only scratches the surface.
I don’t understand this post, Severance never claimed to be a mindblowing political series. It’s a sci-fi thriller that also happens to be a satire of corporate culture, nothing more. It doesn’t need to be “a deeper critique of capitalism” to tell a good story
Yeah, upon reading the post I immediately thought of an article from a long time ago whether some anime was feminist or antifeminist. It was just an average anime that didn’t even engage with the topic.
The conversation around a piece of art becomes infinitely worse once values are ascribed to it based on a (re)viewers personal ideologies and agenda.
I’m all for anticapitalist sentiment and feminism, but not every topic needs to be evaluated under them.
Early on the show told us it wouldn’t be a deep philosophical exploration. By making that aspect of the show (personified as the brother in law) be comic relief.
While he is comic relief, no arguing that - it doesn’t preclude his role in the series from sparking interesting debates. It’s just a different discussion than the one you’re presumably hoping for.
Agreed on both counts. It’s true that I went in hoping for a delve in what it means to be severed, but the show told me early it wasn’t going to be that and I accepted that.
I didn’t see the show as promising to critique capitalism, but explore cults through the setting of an office. Everything outside of the exploration of cult was incidental.
I think it’s mainly focussing on the emotional part of severance, e.g. immediate interpersonal & especially romantic connections. Some focus on the social & cultural aspects would have been really nice!
Hopefully we’ll get some of that in the next season. I couldn’t be happier with the first two, so I’d say there’s a good chance they’ll move to these aspects to keep things interesting, especially after the ending of season 2 seems to be focussing on the conflicts between severed & non-severed!
This is definitely a show about emotional feelings of the situations. It’s not really what I would call an exploration of any topic other than what they think humans would be like on an emotional level being put through a world with the setup it has.
It mostly nails it to through execution but man it’s a show of vibes and triggering your empathetic response far more than it is any good for commentary.
Hm, I’d argue that it’s just as much about hierarchy as it is about emotions. Almost every interpersonal connection has some kind of power differential, and these frequently lead to abuse, exploitation and pain, whereas interpersonal connection on the same level seems to work in the opposite direction.
I don’t understand this post, Severance never claimed to be a mindblowing political series. It’s a sci-fi thriller that also happens to be a satire of corporate culture, nothing more. It doesn’t need to be “a deeper critique of capitalism” to tell a good story
Yeah, upon reading the post I immediately thought of an article from a long time ago whether some anime was feminist or antifeminist. It was just an average anime that didn’t even engage with the topic.
The conversation around a piece of art becomes infinitely worse once values are ascribed to it based on a (re)viewers personal ideologies and agenda.
I’m all for anticapitalist sentiment and feminism, but not every topic needs to be evaluated under them.
I read your post multible times and found no references to you being pro skub. That means you must be anti skub.
Found the anti-feminist! /s
Office Space on ketamine.
Early on the show told us it wouldn’t be a deep philosophical exploration. By making that aspect of the show (personified as the brother in law) be comic relief.
While he is comic relief, no arguing that - it doesn’t preclude his role in the series from sparking interesting debates. It’s just a different discussion than the one you’re presumably hoping for.
Agreed on both counts. It’s true that I went in hoping for a delve in what it means to be severed, but the show told me early it wasn’t going to be that and I accepted that.
I didn’t see the show as promising to critique capitalism, but explore cults through the setting of an office. Everything outside of the exploration of cult was incidental.
I think it’s mainly focussing on the emotional part of severance, e.g. immediate interpersonal & especially romantic connections. Some focus on the social & cultural aspects would have been really nice!
Hopefully we’ll get some of that in the next season. I couldn’t be happier with the first two, so I’d say there’s a good chance they’ll move to these aspects to keep things interesting, especially after the ending of season 2 seems to be focussing on the conflicts between severed & non-severed!
This is definitely a show about emotional feelings of the situations. It’s not really what I would call an exploration of any topic other than what they think humans would be like on an emotional level being put through a world with the setup it has.
It mostly nails it to through execution but man it’s a show of vibes and triggering your empathetic response far more than it is any good for commentary.
Hm, I’d argue that it’s just as much about hierarchy as it is about emotions. Almost every interpersonal connection has some kind of power differential, and these frequently lead to abuse, exploitation and pain, whereas interpersonal connection on the same level seems to work in the opposite direction.